


Conduit

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 19:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4361213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'd thought she was doing the right thing, but for the first time, Scully realized that right and wrong were not so clearly delineated as she'd once believed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conduit

_“You shouldn’t have told them. They have no jurisdiction.”_  
_“Mulder, they’re NSA. They think the boy may be a threat to national security.”_  
_“C’mon. How could an 8 year-old boy, who can barely multiply, be a threat to national security? People call_ me _paranoid.”  
“Well how did Kevin obtain top-secret information? I mean, where do you think he got it from?”_

It seemed so obvious: if a team of NSA agents kicks open the door to your hotel room at 5:30 in the morning, weapons drawn, and you haven’t even done anything wrong, of  _course_ you tell them what they want to know.

So why did she have that sinking feeling that she’d just made a horrible mistake?

The car ride to the diner was tense and nearly silent.

“Mulder, we can’t--”

“I know that. It’s out of our hands now, nothing we can do to stop them. I’m not going there yet, I just… I need to get some coffee. After that, I’ll go to the house, once the boys in black are done with their little snipe hunt. Try to salvage  _something_  of this investigation. If that’s even possible.”

The contempt in his voice stung, and Scully felt her face redden even though she didn’t see what she could have done differently that morning. Did he really expect her to lie to the NSA? To prioritize their investigation of this… this  _tabloid_  story, over matters of national security?

He didn’t say another word for the rest of the short drive, and she followed him quietly to a booth in the back corner of the diner. The combination of her nerves and the smell of eggs and potatoes frying sent her stomach rolling, and she ordered toast with her coffee in hopes of calming it. When the waitress left, Mulder still wasn’t meeting her eyes, and Scully took a deep breath.

“They thought you’d stolen information. Would you honestly rather I’d let them go on thinking you’d done something wrong?”

He expelled a breath sharply through his nose. “And you think Kevin’s done something wrong? Come on, Scully, what  _possible_  good could come of sending them after him? You met the boy, he’s no threat. He wrote those numbers down while staring at television static. What did you think he was going to do with them? You think he’s got the Russians on speed-dial?” He sat back and rubbed his face. “Look, I know you think it’s all black and white, that the government are always the good guys, and if you don’t do things by the book you’re in the wrong. But I promise you, you can’t take all that on blind faith. And those guys? The NSA? They talk a big game, but think about it. They don’t actually have any direct authority over what we do here. We are  _not_  accountable to them. If they want to jump through all the necessary legal hoops to get us in trouble, well, at least we’ve bought some time to try and finish out the case, find out what really happened to Ruby. Sometimes it’s better to get in a little bit of trouble professionally in order to actually do the right thing.”

She opened her mouth to argue but stopped. Actually thought about what he’d said. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized how much sense his words made, and how little sense the claims of the NSA agents made.

What had she done?


End file.
